The Travellers by Antonia Fields
I also didn’t want Jason in my head. I was confused and that being said I was super confused about him. I didn’t know what to make of him. Axel said to trust him so on the outside I did, but letting him into my head and into all that confusion and the girly sighs I sometimes silently made when I caught sight of him. Oh no, this would not turn out well for me, so I evaded.
“I bet you say that to all the girls” he turned to me wearing that big wide grin of his and that right there, noticing that grin was why I didn’t want him in my head.
He was quite for a minute or two and then “seriously though Lily, we have to do this. We could practice. We only have a day’s drive left, maybe less. Once we get to the Palace we won’t have time for anything other than getting in, getting Axel and getting out…so let’s practice now and make it as easy as possible for us to mind chat”.
“Mind chat” I said, “that’s what the boys are calling it now”, ok so I was acting like a bratty little girl but I just did not want to do this – and apparently I said that out loud. Wow, this was going well.
“Lily I’m not going to invade your private thoughts, not unless you want me too” he says with a grin “seriously Lily, it’s just a silent chat, that’s all” he waited while I silently chatted with my inner voice about how I really did not want to do this while my inner voice calmly told me it was a great idea and it really was the best choice so “alright” I screamed. Actually that was me shouting at my inner voice but apparently Jason didn’t know that yet, because I had walls up.
“Relax Lily, it’s not going to hurt and you can create a special room within that wall of yours that is especially for you and me to chat in and keep the rest as secure and private as you want”
“What, really, I can do that” because I’m thinking, that I can do.
“Yes” he said. “All you have to do is visualise a room, use your imagination and confine any communication between us to that room and visualise the rest of your fortress solidly and indestructibly in place.”
Huh I thought. I could do that. “Ok” I said “give me a minute”.
So I did. I visualised a door way leading into the top of my wall. I hung a sign, ‘Jason and Lily chat here’. The door opens onto a room that looks very much like the library I left behind. My favourite corner, with my favourite desk although I did add two very large cushions because I always thought I’d love to sit on something like that when I read. A little sentimental and a little sappy but I couldn’t help it, when I thought of chatting I thought of my corner in the library. The only thing missing was my big window. Every time I tried to visualise a window, all it looked onto was the garden of my private thoughts so I nixed the window and added a tapestry of the ocean instead.
“Ok done, what’s next”?
“I’m going to try and feel out the edges of your mind, you focus on the room and let’s see if I can find it” he said.
“Actually” I said “I was wondering, while you’re trying to probe my mind, who’s driving the car?” He chuckled. At least he wasn’t mad with me anymore
“I can do both things simultaneously and I’m very good at probing minds. At some point Lily you will have to start trusting that I really do know what I’m doing”.
Hmm, I thought, so much for the good mood, I’ve managed to piss him off again, which he probably just heard because I just felt something poke my brain “hey” I screamed “can you try gentle on the dial”.
Jason ignored me of course because I continually felt his poking at my brain. It reminded me of those horrible tactile bendy rubber toys that acquiesce to your touch as you transform their shapes. And he opened the door “nice touch, I would have found it without the sign though”.
“That’s not what I meant” I thought
“I heard that” I heard someone say it my head “what!”
“It’s me Lily, I’m in your head. Like what you’ve done with the place, a little rustic, but nice”.
“Umm how come I can hear you so clearly, it’s like you’re talking to me normally” I said out loud.
“I can’t believe you haven’t done this before it’s like the kind of thing we learnt in kindergarten” thought Jason, and that was enough for me, I was already feeling freaked out by this whole silent chatting thing and now he was making fun of me.
“No Lily wait’ he screamed as I slammed the door shut after kicking him out of our chat room. I didn’t want to be reminded of my childhood, not when Axel was in trouble.
“You’re going to have to leave that door open at all times Lily. I can force my way in but I’d rather not. This thing would go a lot easier if you just played along” he said out loud.
He didn’t sound pleased and I really didn’t care but I was beginning to notice how difficult I found reading Jason. I slowly, over time, allowed him access to our room and he ‘freely’ allowed me admission into his mind, although I couldn’t help but feel that there was a lot he was holding back. It was very weird at first, it really did feel like playing with one of those rubber toys.
There were definitely areas of Jason’s mind I couldn’t access, it felt like I was knocking on a brick wall, and others where had I looked more closely I would have seen the welcome sign. Jason was very gentle with me and encouraging when I was shy about entering his mind at all. It became pretty easy and I kind of liked the idea of having a secret conversation with someone. It’s something I could get use to, all in the nick of time too. We were just outside the outskirts of the city, in less than an hour we would be at the Palace gates.
Chapter 27
The Beast
The beast had been tracking the two Travellers from a distance, these were his orders – track, do not engage, report. He had been trying to see the girl in his sleep. She was resisting him, every time he was about to break through she would jolt awake. She recognised him, which should have worried him and clinically it did, emotionally though he couldn’t help but smile at the thought. That’s how he had tracked them. His usual methods, he now understood, were not applicable anymore.
The boy knew how to cover his tracks. He had fooled even the most sophisticated technology, “unprecedented” is what his superiors called it. The only method of tracking them left to the beast was to link with the girl and even though she woke when he probed her mind, it was enough for the beast to discover her location. If she had opened up to him, she would have known he was tracking her.
He was surprised at how disappointed he was every time she severed their connection, still, he was on their trail and he confirmed hours ago that they were heading towards the Palace. He knew Gentech personnel were there waiting for them, waiting to issue orders to the beast when he arrived. He was ready to capture her. That’s the thought that kept playing over and over in his head as he followed the trail. Soon he would have her and for good measure he was quite happy to eliminate the boy.
Lily
We had arrived at the Palace two hours ago. Parked a few blocks away Jason was watching, waiting, gauging who was there, where they were and how are we going to enter the Palace unnoticed. He had a plan of course. We had been practising our mind chats, even upgrading to exchanging images. That’s how I knew what the Palace looked like and looking at it now I was amazed at the exact detail and clarity of Jason’s images, they were perfect.
The Palace was an elegant old mansion somewhere between Tudor and Gothic style architecture. Its perimeter was lined with a thicket of trees, a long winding driveway snaking its way to the front of the house. The neighbourhood was urban but affluent, the type where across the road meant a five minute drive. For all the old worldly charm on the outside, Jason had also shown me images on the inside which belied its humble origins of Traveller technology. It was an impressive place to call home.
In amongst all of these images, Jason also showed me how we were getting in. There were a series of tunnels beneath the Palace leading in
I had tried on occasion to break through Jason’s mind defences and every time I would hear a loud, silent “if you let me in, I’ll let you in”. It was no use, I’m not even sure why I was trying. I guess I was trying to keep my mind off what we were about to do. I know, or rather I felt that Jason thought we had about 0.5% chance of succeeding here. This wasn’t in his mind a rescue operation, it was more a suicide run, which made me wonder even more why he was still here. I wasn’t buying the “I made a promise” line he kept feeding me.
I couldn’t stop thinking of Axel. I couldn’t link with his mind. Jason said it was because he was unconscious, he even went so far as to wonder whether they had induced a coma to interrupt any communication between us. We had no element of surprise here, everyone knew we were coming, and they were waiting.
“There” I heard Jason shout out excitedly. “Gentech… I’ve got five personnel there” he pointed to our left “and there” pointing further down the Palace road. “Only ten, they mustn’t think we are much of a challenge. The Palace guards will remain in grounds so we have to get past these guys first. Hopefully the Palace guards will take care of Gentech for us. I need to leave the car and plant our distractions”, he paused looking at me, quite intently in fact. I started shuffling in my seat under the weight of that gaze
“On second thoughts you had better come with me.”
He still didn’t trust me to stay anywhere on my own. He said something about me “not following instruction when I’m trying to keep you safe” blah…blah…blah…so we would become joined at the hip. He retrieved what looked like a gun from the boot of the car.
I’m not sure if he noticed my alarm, he just very calmly stated “it’s something I made. It’s not a weapon as such, it’s going to deploy our holographic images. We are going to get them to chase ghosts” he admitted with a very big, proud grin. I felt a flood of excitement coming from him in my mind. He was actually excited about what we were doing. “I’m hoping this distraction will give us the time and cover to get into the Palace.”
“You made that” I said.
He gave me that narrowed look again, the one that understood I doubted him again
“Someday you are really going to appreciate how smart I am”. Slamming down the car boot door he motioned me to follow him so there was no time for me to contemplate on the scale of the Hawkins to Einstein smartness meter, exactly how smart he was.
I followed him jogging down the street. We weren’t camouflaged, at least not with Traveller tech. I was wearing a jacket and a beanie of Jason’s, my long hair had been gathered up hidden under the cap. Jason was hoping we would blend in with the after school rush of students on the street. I was short enough to look like a kid from a distance, that’s why I was carrying the back pack.
We came to a four storey building just behind the building Jason suspected the Gentech men were waiting in ambush. We climbed the stairs to the roof, it was a busy building, people coming and going. Two kids went unnoticed in amongst all the activity. I watched Jason take out his device. It definitely looked like a gun, complete with trigger, scope and gun barrel. He loaded it with a small cylinder shaped object
“This houses a hologram. It is an image of you and me and I’ve programmed us to run. I’m going to shoot it in three different places in amongst the trees. If I’m right” and he gave me that I’m always right look “Gentech and the Palace guards will see the image, they will detect the tech first when I trigger the hologram that will guide them to our images and fingers crossed, they will take off after us. Once I trigger the holograms we will have about five minutes to get to the tunnel entrance. We will get as close to the tunnel as we can then I’ll trigger the hologram. Don’t worry” he finished saying “this is ingenious, it will work”.
I imagined that I looked doubtful yet again. He flooded my mind with feelings of reassurance and images of what he imagined the whole thing would look like. Jason adjusted a dial on the gun. He was setting the distance and fired once. Reloaded, adjusted the dial, aimed further into the tree line and fired. Reloaded, adjusted the dial, aimed into the Palace driveway and fired.
I was holding my breath, Jason was smiling pleased with the outcome.
He tapped my shoulder and pointed to the roof of the building opposite from us. There on the roof I could see movement, nothing big or obvious, scampering is how I could best describe it “Gentech” Jason said into my mind “they have a tech signature they know we are here they are just not sure where, I’ve scrambled our signal. C’mon, let’s go”.
Jason stayed low as he ran back across the roof to the door leading to the stairs. I followed him mimicking his movements. Now was not the time to argue his every move. I released this feeling to him and he turned around as he opened the stairwell door and smiled “it’s about time” I heard loud and clear in my mind as I followed him all the way down to street level.
Luckily the streets were still busy and we rushed unnoticed out of the building onto the street. Jason did his best ninja impression and seamlessly blended with the crowd. I however, feeling a little stressed failed to show such finesse and bumped into person “sorry” after person “sorry” after person “sorry”.
I saw Jason double back, he took my hand and still managed to cut a path through the crowd with me in tow and not one single bump. I would wander sometime in the future with all my physical training with Axel why I had such a hard time moving through a crowd and how Jason executed our retreat so effortlessly. Could my body not move with a little more grace?
We hurried back to the car and walked straight past it “we are heading to the tunnel. I’m about to press the trigger, once Gentech see the holograms we have to move, we will be exposed for about 30 seconds so we have to move under the cover of their distraction”.
Jason took a panel out of his pocket and pressed a seemingly invisible button on the top of it. He waited then pointed. I followed his finger and that’s when I saw us, both of us, running through the trees towards the Palace grounds. Then he pointed to our left and right. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw them but I was. Men dressed all in black, running out of the buildings and vehicles parked on the street, all running towards the us’s running in amongst the trees on Palace grounds.
Jason waited a few more seconds until the Gentech men were all on the ground. He pressed the button for the second device and tapped my shoulder “c’mon, we go now” and we ran heading straight for the alleyway right next to the former Gentech ambush point.
Chapter 28
Lily
We were out in the open as Jason had predicted, however there was no one there to see us. That didn’t stop either Jason or me from running very fast to an alley way across the road from the Palace. As alley ways went it was quite a fancy one and by fancy I mean clean, I suppose it should be the Palace wasn’t exactly hidden amongst the poorest of neighbourhoods. It was simply an alleyway servicing two buildings. We were heading to the back of the alley, toward what looked like a wall. I saw Jason standing in front of it, playing with his special watch only to see the wall start to shimmer and a doorway appeared in its place. “C’mon Lily, we have to go now”.
I was apparently rooted to the spot staring at the newly appeared doorway. I have seen some weird and maybe not so wonderful things over the last few days and yet here I was amazed as Jason grabbed my arm shoving me in through the door and out of my stupor. As we both ran inside, Jason once again started fiddling with his fancy watch and the door once again was replaced by a wall.
“Neat trick” I s
Quite, from Jason, well that was a first, the one thing I could rely on with Jason was a comeback, every time, except now it seemed and I would lie if I didn’t admit how unsettling that was.
“From now on we mind speak OK. It’s important. They have excellent security and can hear even the smallest of sounds”. Great I thought as I watched Jason fire up a light source from his fancy watch
“Doesn’t that mean they will hear us coming” I said. “Yes” he replied “but they will think we are part of the Palace general community, its conversation and aberrant tech signatures they’ll be looking for. Anyway I guarantee by now everyone is watching our holograms that’s why we need to get into the main building quickly”.
I followed Jason closely. The tunnel was dark and the light source didn’t spread light too far ahead it felt like we were walking downwards until the path levelled out again. Jason definitely knew where he was going, I would have to ask him exactly how many times he had made this trip when this was all over. A look at my watch betrayed my senses showing only 10 minutes had passed as we reached a door in the tunnel.
Jason had triggered the last hologram just before he closed off the alley way entrance so by now we were both hoping Palace guards and Gentech personnel were out there occupied with each other’s presence so that we had just enough time to make it into the Palace out building.